SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOLUME 131, NUMBER 5 Cljarlesi ©. anb ifWarp IrJaux OTalcott l^esiearcl) Jf unb A CHECK-LIST OF THE FOSSIL AND PREHISTORIC BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES By ALEXANDER WETMORE Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution (Publication 4228) CITY OF WASHINGTON PUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION JANUARY 25, 1956 THE LORD BALTIMORE PRESS, INC. BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A. Cftacles! ©. anb iHarp *^aux lEalcott B^ctfcarcft jFunb A CHECK-LIST OF THE FOSSIL AND PRE- HISTORIC BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES By ALEXANDER WETMORE Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution The present check-list is an ampHfication of the one published in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections in 1940 (vol. 99, No, 4) and is complete to November 1955 so far as records have come to at- tention. To the present time these check-lists have covered the area of the check-list of living birds of the American Ornithologists' Union, namely North America north of Mexico, with the addition of Baja California. It has seemed desirable now to include also the records, comparatively few in number, for Mexico and the West Indies, since this information is complementary and otherwise is available only in widely scattered sources. Various of these latter records are of species of birds described from bones found during archeological excavations in Indian kitchen middens of pre-Columbian age or during the ex- ploration of caverns. The species concerned have long been extinct, so that the only knowledge regarding them is embodied in their skeletal remains. No living examples have been known. It is useful therefore to include them for reference with other species of fossil status, since they do not figure in check-lists of existing birds and since possibly they may be encountered at some future time in true fossil form. They have the same pertinence therefore as species described from Pleisto- cene beds whose bones have been found subsequently in Recent deposits. The considerable amount of information now available has allowed more detail relative to geological formations from which the various records have come, and these data have been brought down to date as far as practicable. In this I have had the advice in certain cases of Druid Wilson, of the U. S. Geological Survey, and also have profited from discussions with Dr. C. Wythe Cooke of the same service, par- ticularly as to formations of the southeastern United States. In the records from the Pleistocene there has been sufficient study of the deposits of this age known from the western United States to allow indication of position, as to whether they are considered early or SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 131, NO. 5 2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I3I late, of most of the faunas. The situation in Florida is not so clear. Bone beds at Melbourne and Vero overlie the Anastasia formation, a marine Pleistocene deposit, and therefore are considered late Pleisto- cene. Apparently a newer find at Haile in Alachua County may be from a similar level. The Seminole Field in Pinellas County also ap- pears to overlie the beds of the west coast of Florida that are con- sidered equivalent to the Anastasia, if not exactly the same formation. However, Pliocene exposures are near at hand so that the sequence, from present knowledge, is not clear-cut as it is at Melbourne. In- formation relative to the localities at Bradenton, Sarasota, and on the Itchtucknce River is far from definite, and other deposits found in caverns, while evidently Pleistocene, are still more uncertain as to actual relationship within that period. Collecting continues actively in the Florida Pleistocene, and presently there should be accumulated sufficient data on the avifauna to permit a reasonable correlation. In the meantime it has seemed better to list all the Florida records as Pleistocene without attempt to indicate the level. To list Melbourne and Vero alone, for example, as late Pleistocene might be misleading. Recent investigations of Dr. Joseph T. Gregory (Condor, 1952, pp. 73-88) have changed measurably the time-honored concept in which the species of Ichthyornis have been associated with the Hcsperornis group in a superorder (Odontognathae) of the Neorni- thes, characterized by the possession of teeth. The skull of Ichthyor- nis always has presented an anomaly in that the teeth were in sockets instead of in grooves as in Hcsperornis. Further, the mandible, or lower jaw, was unduly large in comparison with the rest of the skull and the body skeleton. Dr. Gregory has shown that the jaws attributed to Ichthyornis in reality are reptilian and are those of a small mosasaur. These conclusions destroy the main reasons for the association of Ichthyornis and Hcsperornis in one superorder, though still leaving Ichthyornis apart from birds known from later periods to the present, in the biconcave vertebrae. In preliminary consideration it seemed that it might be desirable in the classification to cancel the category of superorders, but on further consideration it appears useful to emphasize the considerable and definite differences that separate Hcsperornis, Ichthyornis, and the penguins from each other and from other groups of birds. This may be accomplished through a new superorder Ichthyornithes for the order Ichthyornithiformes, leaving Hcsperornis and those others placed near it in the Odontognathae. This will serve as stated above to call attention to the existing peculi- arities of these groups and will give a balanced treatment. NO. 5 CHECK-LIST OF FOSSIL BIRDS—WETMORE 3 The family Mancallidae is added for the two species of Mancalla at present recognized, since resemblance between these and the great auk appears due to convergence. The two west-coast forms differ from other auks in the marked modification of the wing for use as a flipper. The genera Paloelodus and Megapaloclodiis have been placed with the typical flamingos in the Phoenicopteridae, a group to which they are unquestionably related. Dr. Hildegarde Howard recently pointed out their differences in the shorter, heavier metatarsus, nonpneumatic femur, and different form in the tibiotarsus and has proposed the family Paloelodidae. To the differences outlined by Dr. Howard there may be added the form of the bill, which, to judge from one incomplete specimen of Paloelodus ambiguiis Milne Edwards of the Oligocene of western Europe, was gooselike and not bent downward as in the true flamingos. It may be noted also that the toes in Paloe- lodus were definitely longer. The modern species that occur in the fossil record are distinguished from those not known in living form by the inclusion of a common name in the heading and the statement that the bird is one found in modern form. Most of these are listed under specific scientific names without regard to local race, since most subspecies may not be identi- fied from bones. It is extremely doubtful procedure in most instances to assume that Pleistocene subspecies were the same as those en- countered in the region today, and assumption of race is made only where there is reasonable certainty of the identification. The specific names therefore are used in an inclusive sense, though it is evident in wide-ranging groups that two or more subspecies may be covered in the fossil record, for example, in the ruffed grouse, Bonasa umbellus, where bones identified as this .species are known from such widely separated localities as Maryland and California. This should be under- stood particularly in cases like that of the raven, Corvus corax, or marsh hawk. Circus cyaneus, where the range extends to other con- tinents. The present list gives the record of 189 forms still living, and of 248 species recorded only in an extinct state, this including 1 1 kinds known only from bones in cave or midden deposits of Recent age. There remain the 12 additional names of uncertain status listed at the end under the heading incertae sedis. The increase from the 165 modern forms and 184 extinct species of the list of 1940 is indicative of the growth in knowledge in this field during the comparatively brief interval of 15 years but reveals only part of the increase since many additional records have been found for numerous living species in- cluded in 1940. 4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I3I Class AVES : Birds Subclass NEORNITHES: True Birds Superorder ODONTOGNATHAE: New World Toothed Birds Order HESPERORNITHIFORMES : Hesperornithes Family HESPERORNITHIDAE : Hesperornithes Genus HESPERORNIS Marsh Hesperornis Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. 3, 1872, p. 360. Type, by monotypy, Hesperornis regalis Marsh. Hesperornis crassipes (Marsh) Lestornis crassipes Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. 11, 1876, p. 509. Upper Cretaceous (Niobrara formation) : Western Kansas. Hesperornis montana Shufeldt Hesperornis montana Shufeldt, Auk, vol. 32, No. 3, July 1915, p. 293, pi. 18, figs. 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. Upper Cretaceous (Claggett formation) : i mile above mouth of Dog Creek, Fergus County, Montana. Hesperornis regalis Marsh Hesperornis regalis Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. 3, 1872, p. 357. Upper Cretaceous (Niobrara formation) : Smoky Hill River, 20 miles east of Wallace (type locality), and Two Mile Creek, Smoky Hill River, Logan County, Kansas. Hesperornis gracilis Marsh 1 Hesperornis gracilis Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. 11, 1876, p. 510. Upper Cretaceous (Niobrara formation) : Near Smoky Hill River, western Kansas. Genus CONIORNIS Marsha Coniornis Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. 45, 1893, p. 82. Type, by monotypy, Coniornis alius Marsh. Coniornis altus Marsh Coniornis altus Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. 45, 1893, p. 82, text fig. Upper Cretaceous (Judith River formation) : Dog Creek, Fergus County, Montana. 1 Gregory, Condor, vol. 54, No. 2, Mar. 26, 1952, p. 74, concludes that the genus Hargeria, erected for this species by Lucas, is not separable from Hesperornis.